New Thoughts on GeographyAuthor(s): Martin PhillipsSource: Area, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Jun., 1993), pp. 200-201Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20003289 .

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200 Annual Conference

apparatus for showing lantern slides or projecting one's water colours of foreign parts. The first paper was given by Avril Maddrell-Mander (Oxford) to an audience which grew gradually as people crept back from relaxed lunches. She showed how geographical education responded to changes in the state, in civil society and in gender roles during the course of the Nineteenth Century. She illustrated her argument with examples of both good and bad practice in education and demonstrated that the best practice was far more imaginative than the capes and bays so despised by Geikie amongst others. However towards the end of the century it was mainly the boys who benefitted since girls often had to study 'domestic economy', by then a compulsory subject, in place of geography.

Michael Wise (LSE) also illustrated the imaginative quality often found in late nineteenth century geography in a paper on the Scott Keltie Report in context. He concentrated on the teaching under the London School Board and noted the way in which Her/His Majesty's Inspectors (HMIs) of the period had noted enthusiastic teaching often based on using children's observations of their own locality.

In the following paper on Tropical Africa in school geography, David Wright (UEA) paid attention to' geography readers ', descriptive works which were sold in huge numbers and which supplemented the purely factual material taught in too many schools. At their best they both covered factual material and provided exciting descriptions-some descriptions so striking that they were repeated and reprinted until well into this century. Although containing and propogating values which we might decry today, these readers had the immense value of en gendering enthusiasm for geography and making it, perhaps uniquely, a bottom up rather than a top down subject.

After time for questions and tea, the two overlapping, a somewhat larger audience reassembled to hear Bill Marsden's (Liverpool) paper on fragmentation in geographical education in which he distinguished between fragmenters, including such people as Fairgrieve and Wooldridge, who broke geography into small and often disconnected elements and who also created divisions between academic geography and geographical education, and connectors, who were concerned with establishing connections both within geography and between the academic and the things of everyday life. In particular Geikie, Mackinder and Dudley Stamp were heroes of connection.

Although not quite presented as heroes and villains, in the next paper, John Bale (Keele) examined the importance of charismatic individuals in the translation of new ideas from academic geography into school geography. On the one hand he noted the success of the ' geography for the young school leaver 'project, which owed much to enthusiastic presentation, and on the other the failure of radical geography to flourish in the school context. As one example of charisma he pointed to Rex Walford's (Cambridge) advocacy of games in geography, and the audience had the opportunity to put the thesis to the test when Rex Walford gave the final paper of the afternoon on the campaigns which had been fought to maintain and expand the role of geography in school education, culminating in the battle over the National Curriculum. He too emphasised not only the importance of the professional associations but of individuals within those associations. In particular at the beginning of this century he noted Mackinder's stature and the reasons why Fleure succeeded in promoting geography whilst Roxby had little success with government departments.

If one thing suffused the afternoon it was enthusiasm: the finest geographers were enthusiasts, the best geographical teaching was enthusiastic, great geographical writing conveyed enthusi asm, and, about all, geography had been, was now, and should be a subject about which to be enthusiastic. Most people left the session having caught, once again perhaps, something of that enthusiasm.

Hugh Mason University of Portsmouth

New thoughts on geography This was the second of two sessions organised by the History and Philosophy of Geography Study Groups. The session was convened by Martin Phillips (Coventry) to give a forum for

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Annual Conference 201

discussion of how geographers might draw upon a variety of new (and as one participant commented, not so new) philosophies. The session was composed to two modules, spanning the

morning of the last day of the conference. Given this unfavourable slot, it was encouraging to see a relatively large audience.

The first module had as its theme the issue of the theorisation of socio-spatial relations. The first paper on this topic was given by Tim Unwin (Royal Holloway) who drew upon Habermas arguments about the constitution of knowledge to raise some questions about the work of Harvey and Lefebvre and their arguments about the social construction of space. It was suggested that their argument, that space is socially constructed may not help in the construction of knowledge to enable emancipation, not least by conflating notions of relative and absolute space, separating space from time, and emphasising space to the detriment of considering processes, subjects and objects.

The second paper by John Allen (Open University) and Mike Pryke (Cambridge) also discussed the work of Lefebvre, although drawing very different implications from it. They suggested that geographers should pay less attention to any abstract philosophical questions that Lefebvre's work poses and should instead pay more attention to bringing some of his insights to life. In this paper they focused specifically on Lefebvre's notions of reprsentations of space, representational spaces and spatial practices, which they considered in relation to the City of London.

The third paper was written by George Hughes (Edinburgh), but given by Mark Boyle (Glasgow). The core argument in the paper was that geographers need to consider the role of aesthetics in how they, and other people, look at place. The paper illustrated the construction of images associated with the restructuring of Glasgow and also suggested that the study of space is a reflection of prevailing aesthetic cultures. As in the first paper connections were drawn to the

work of Habermas, although the emphasis is given to theories as artistic creations stood in some tension with the reading of Habermas provided in the initial paper.

In the second module in the session, attention moved away slightly from the issue of socio spatial relation and on to the value-or not-of poststructural philosophies. The module began with an 'unashamedly subjective paper' by Pamela Shurmer-Smith (Portsmouth) entitled ' Geographers and jouissance'. After explaining that an attachment to the word ' jouissance'

came before her detailed reading of French deconstructionists such as Cixous and Deleuze and Guattari, the paper went onto outline advertising. The paper picked up nicely, and moved on, some of the arguments concerning the significance of spatial relations by demonstrating how

woemn are portrayed in perfume adverts as almost universally dislocated from place. The next paper by Marcus Doel (Liverpool John Moores) entitled ' On vampires becoming

indifferent to the seduction of exhaustion', continued the exploration of poststructuralism, and indeed also drew upon the ideas of Deleuze and Guattari. The paper argued that geographers are increasing, and unnecessarily, gripped by a fear of loosing a sense of purpose or reason to act. The fear is created by the postmodern and poststructuralist critiques of notions of truth and value and is expressed by a concern to avoid relativism, textualism, nihilism and perspectivism, it was argued that these fears are effectively paralysing geographers, making them unable to act. The way to avoid this paralysis is, so it was claimed, to adopt the tactics of ' indifference' and 'abandonment'. Thought should be allowed to flow rather than being hemmed in by our fears.

The final paper in the session, ' A light on the margins ', given by Karen De Bres (Kansas State University, USA), provided an interesting contrast with the two preceding papers in that theme of the paper was not so much philosophical as practical/political. The paper examined the role of women in the American Geographical Society between 1855 and 1913 sought to highlight how women's participation in the Society was heavily constrained and yet despite this many succeeded in making considerable contributions as teachers, writers and travellers. The paper served as a valuable contrast to the two preceding papers in this module and a lively debate followed about the significance of biography within poststructuralist thought and the political implications of allowing thoughts to flow wherever desires suggest.

Martin Phillips University of Coventry

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